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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does Jakob image Bella being?

2. What do Ben and Petra do inside of getting into the bed?

3. What does Jakob experience when he first wakes in Michaela's bed?

4. When are Ben's parents liberated from a concentration camp?

5. What does Ben find tucked into the roof of where he is staying?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Jakob's work in Greece?

2. What are some facets to Naomi?

3. What theme does Ben incorporate into his thesis?

4. How does being in Jakob's house affect Ben?

5. How are Jakob's initial days in Greece?

6. How does Jakob relate a theory by Einstein to the Holocaust?

7. What does Ben recall about his father and mother when Ben is growing up?

8. What does Michaela say about her parents and the pioneer museum?

9. What is Salonika and how is it related to Jakob and Michaela?

10. What does Jakob think about as far as the Nazis' effort to dehumanize the Jews?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the following:

1. What is a plot? What are the most important elements of a plot and their definition? Do all novels have a plot? Why or why not?

2. Write a brief synopsis of the plot of "Fugitive Pieces", identifying where the various elements of the plot occur (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution or denouement). Do you find it difficult to identify the plot? Why or why not? What about the various elements of the plot?

3. Identify the major sub-plots and their elements in "Fugitive Pieces". (The subplots may not contain every element of a major plot). Do the sub-plots add to the main plot? Why or why not. Are the sub-plots interesting in and of themselves? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

Athos tells about ancient Biskupin culture and his work to preserve the ruins. After the war, he learns that the Nazis had destroyed the excavations and killed Athos's colleagues shortly after he spirited Jakob to safety. It is the basis for Athos's belief that Jakob is responsible for saving him, more so than vice versa. Jakob meditates on how prisoners are forced to dig up the mass graves of early victims of Nazism as the perpetrators seek to cover up evidence. He pictures workers forced, like the stone carriers of Golleschau, to do the unthinkable: handle the gory remains of the dead.

1. Why do you think it is significant that the Nazis destroyed archeological ruins or historical sites? Discuss in depth the implications and what you believe may or may not have been lost in such destruction. Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

2. Discuss what you think might be the reasons Athos believes Jakob saved his life. Do you agree? Why or why not? Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

3. Discuss the mental and emotional tolls that must have been taken on the workers forced to do the handling of so many murdered Jews. Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

Essay Topic 3

Jakob offers the parable of a famed rabbi who travels incognito in shabby clothing and is ridiculed by passengers. When they find out who he is, they beg forgiveness, but he refuses, even on the Day of Awe, because they have wronged the man on the train, not himself. The moral: nothing erases an immoral act. When the victim is dead, only silence remains. Recorded history can be resurrected. Destruction turns presence into absence.

1. With research, explain what a parable is and why they might be used. Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

2. Do you think it is true that nothing erases an immoral act? Why or why not? Use examples from your own life and the book to support your answer.

3. Discuss, in depth, what you think the following means: When the victim is dead, only silence remains. Recorded history can be resurrected. Destruction turns presence into absence. Use examples from your own life and "Fugitive Pieces" to support your answer.

(see the answer keys)

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